George Allen on Principles & Values

Republican Senate Challenger

Recently discovered he has Jewish heritage

Allen was clearly irritated last week when a reporter asked at a televised debate whether his mother was Jewish. Allen dismissed the question as “irrelevant,” but said a day later he had discovered that his grandfather was Jewish, and the following
day that his mother had recently told him that she was raised Jewish as well.

The Allen campaign opened the door to the question by not providing answers to the Jewish newspaper the Forward, which reported late last month that Allen’s mother,
Henrietta, a French Tunisian, was “likely” Jewish by birth. A week earlier, the senator’s staff said they were not familiar with any Jewish background.

The senator’s mother got dragged into public discussion because of speculation that
Allen had picked up the word “macaca” from her. Allen has apologized for using the word -- a racial slur in some cultures -- to describe an Indian American volunteer for Webb’s campaign.

Source: Howard Kurtz column in Washington Post
, Sep 24, 2006

Raised Christian with Jewish ancestry; religion not relevant

Q: The Jewish press published a story that explored your possible Jewish ancestry on your mother’s side. You’ve been quoted as saying your mother’s not Jewish, but it had been reported her father, your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle
name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forbearers include Jews, and if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?

(Booing from the audience)

A: I’m glad you all have that reaction. You know what our first freedom in
this country was? Freedom of religion. To be getting into what religion my mother is, I’d like to ask you, why is that relevant?

Q: Honesty.

A: My mother’s French-Italian, with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as
I know, raised as a Christian. My mother’s father was incarcerated by the Nazis in World War II. And of all people in my life who told me about tolerance and not judging people by their religious beliefs or their ethnicity or their race, it is my mother.

Source: Peggy Fox interview in Washington Post
, Sep 20, 2006

Conservative alternative to McCain in presidential jockeying

Senator George Allen is the only person in Virginia who wears cowboy boots. It’s a warm and bright spring day at the annual Virginia political fest known as Shad Planking. Once a whites-only event where state Democrats picked their nominees, Shad
Planking is now a multiracial affair where candidates from both parties come to show off their regular-guy bona fides and trade lighthearted barbs. Beer flows freely. Knots of tailgaters gossip about state politics. In a clearing amid tall pines, shad
is cooked on long wooden boards. Though the two Democrats fighting for a shot to challenge Allen this year in his Senate reelection campaign both show up for the event, Allen clearly owns the crowd, as the sea of royal blue Allen T-shirts and baseball
caps makes clear. The senator has emerged as the principal conservative alternative to John McCain in the early jockeying among 2008 Republican presidential candidates, and today’s event is a reminder of what conservatives love about him.